


The twisted love logic of a broken home

by lisachan



Series: Leoverse [310]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29683281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: Timmy's called at his parents house to learn most shocking news. He doesn't take it well.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Leoverse [310]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/30541
Collections: COWT - Clash Of the Writing Titans/Chronicles Of Words and Trials





	The twisted love logic of a broken home

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** This story is a **what if** from the original 'verse. In the canon course of events that followed the beginning of Broken Heart Syndrome, **this has never happened**.
> 
> This is Leviverse, if you need to know, but way before Levi.

Timmy often struggled to understand his parents. He never truly did, really, but one thing he understood, in the way children always understand things about their parents to make sure they can survive being raised at least partially unscathed, and that’s the kind of love that they have. That much has always been pretty easy for him to translate into something he could comprehend. 

His parents’ love is the kind of love that cannot be shaken. It’s totalizing and it’s _all_ , for them, it comes before everything and anything else: before health, wealth, peace of mind. None of that matters if they’re not together first, if they don’t belong to one another first. And everything that comes after is just second place. 

They have a one-item list of priorities: their relationship is the only thing featured on it. The rest, really, comes following, or doesn’t come at all.

This is a kind of love he can understand, because that’s always been the kind of love he himself could feel for the people he fell for. Not that he has many examples of that, throughout his life, after all he’s only been with two people, but he felt the same kind of love for them both.

Especially for Alex. Alex is not just the brightest star in his solar system, he is the _only_ one. He shines so bright his existence burns his eyes, and he cannot see anything else. Whenever he thinks of the future, whenever he imagines what he will be when he’s going to be old and gray, he sees the farm and he sees Alex. Sometimes, he sees Alex even when he cannot see the farm. And he sees nothing else beside him, nothing that could have an emotional impact comparable with him. He doesn’t see pets. Most importantly, he doesn’t see children.

Which is the first of the long list of things he never understood of his parents. How, with the kind of love they share, they could envision children in their life. 

It is staggering, for him. Now, Leo’s never been a rational person, but Blaine? Rational is all that he is. It is the foundation of his code of conduct, his moral compass. Every train of thought, every decision, is born out of rationality. And yet, knowing that children will never be a priority for him the moment Leo would’ve needed him more, he still wanted them.

Timmy knows he was an exception. He came suddenly in Blaine’s life, he wasn’t a forced addition, of course, but he came in as an obligation, at least partially, and most importantly unplanned. He was there, he needed Blaine, Blaine took him in, Leo wasn’t even a part of his life he was sure about on the long run. He had to decide if he wanted this kid around, and with no apparent obstacles to it, he chose he did.

But the twins. The twins were a whole different matter. Blaine and Leo wanted them, planned for them, insisted on them, spent obscene amounts of money just to conceive them, and what for? To parade them around like extremely well dressed baby dolls, and then leave them in Timmy’s care, on in Marge and Rodney’s care, for days on end, weeks, sometimes, because they had to take care of each other and their relationship.

That has always been his parents’ MO. Leo’s always tended towards instability, he will never ever be a stable man again, if he ever had a chance of being one, and as soon as he starts freaking out because family life suffocates him, or his job becomes too pressing, or his routine too boring, he starts begging for some time off, and Blaine immediately comes to the rescue, and off they go, to Europe or Asia or Vegas or anywhere else, for _weeks_ , until Leo feels better, all relaxed and calm after having been pampered for days, and they can come back home. Nothing else that isn’t taking care of Leo can ever take place until Leo feels better. And Leo will only feel better after experiencing weeks of undiluted devotion coming from Blaine, there’s no other way to it.

And the children? Back home, alone with their older brother or with their grandparents. Forgotten. 

In time, Timmy learned to accept that. He learned how to explain that kind of thing to the twins so that they wouldn’t think their parents didn’t love them. He learned how to explain it to himself, too, how to rationalize it. It would be worse if they stayed, he told himself. They wouldn’t be able to concentrate on us, they wouldn’t be able to properly take care of us. It’s actually better if they go away for a while, when Leo turns demanding and needy, he would cause wreckage in the home if he insisted to stay, he would be untreatable, whiny and unbearable, and that would be worse than him not being there at all.

Besides, he told himself, there was nothing his parents could do about that. That star-shiny love blinding them to anything else that wasn’t them didn’t _allow_ them any different kind of behavior. It wasn’t a choice, it was their only option. It was comforting to know that. That they weren’t _choosing_ to leave, they just _had_ to.

No matter how ignored and dragged around by their needs Timmy could feel at any point in his life, he could always cling to that thought to help himself keep intact the devotion he felt for his parents. Their love has rules they can’t work around. It is like my love. Strong-willed and stubborn, it cannot be tampered with.

Which is why his brain blacks out right now, as his fathers try and explain why, all of a sudden, Cody’s come to live with them.

“What does this mean?” he asks. His parents are sitting on the couch, Cody’s sitting between them, and they all look awkward as hell. He wonders vaguely where the twins are and then automatically concludes that they must be at Marge and Rod’s. They always are, when things in the family becomes too muddy, after all. And this looks and feels and smells muddy at best.

“Powder puff,” his father tries gently, “Why don’t you sit down for a moment? We need to talk.”

“Don’t call me like that,” Timmy answers curtly, tension conquering his body whole, “Just tell me what’s this about. Why is he here?”

Leo and Blaine exchange a concerned glance. They speak silently with their eyes for a few moments and somehow this only makes Timmy more furious.

“Something happened, sweetie,” Blaine starts talking again, standing up to come closer to him, “Something’s been happening from quite a while, actually.”

“What is it?”

“Something… between Cody and I,” Leo adds, standing up too, “Something complicated.”

Timmy turns his eyes towards him, frowning. He’s always pretty merciless with Leo, he knows that. He believes that instinct to be deeply rooted in the way he was forced away from everything he knew in Westerville to move to Lima when Leo needed Blaine to be back – once again, Leo was the priority, Timmy an accessory that just followed Blaine everywhere – and in all those little instances that followed that moment, a compilation of occurrences that only managed to clarify even further who came first in Blaine’s thoughts. Deep down, he thinks Leo doesn’t _deserve_ mercy: he’s got Blaine already, why should he have mercy too?

So it’s mercilessly that he looks at him now, and it’s mercilessly that he speaks to him now. “Something complicated, you say. How unexpected. ‘Cause nothing’s ever complicated when it is about you.”

“Timmy…” Blaine calls him patiently, though there’s worry vibrating in the back of his voice, “Don’t speak to your father like that. He’s trying to tell you something.”

“I might not be interested in listening!” Timmy snaps back.

This time, Leo frowns. “You asked what was going on,” he points out.

“And you ambushed me!” Timmy shouts at him, “Calling me to come here and then welcoming me, the three of you all sitting on the sofa with that face, like you were about to throw a piano over my head! You forced me into this! And now, instead of speaking, you babble about complicated things that have been happening! Just tell me what is it!”

“Leo and I have been seeing each other,” Cody says softly. His is the weakest voice in the room, and yet it detonates. Timmy never thought that something so thin and tender could bring so much pain, could origin such chaos. 

“You mean you’ve been fucking,” Timmy says, an emptiness in his voice that makes it unrecognizable to himself.

“Mind your language, Timmy,” Leo hisses immediately, and Timmy turns to glare at him.

“Why?” he says, “Isn’t it what you’ve been doing? Or is there any other translation of the sentence _we’ve been seeing each other_ that would justify his presence here with you today?”

“Leo told you, Timothy,” his father tries, his voice the last stronghold patience uses to hold his ground, “It’s complicated.”

Complicated is an understatement Leo always used to describe his relationship with Cody. Who’s Timmy’s boyfriend’s father, to add insult to injury, but Timmy isn’t even going to go there, yet: he will mercifully forget, for the moment, that of all people Leo could have chosen to cheat on his father with, he chose Alex’s dad. The only person whose cheating will complicate Timmy’s life too. To reiterate once again, if it was needed, that Leo doesn’t mind any kind of consequence his actions might impose on Timmy, that’s how irrelevant Timmy is to him. And Timmy will forget that, for the moment, because it would be too much to think about. But it will keep burning.

Complicated. _Complicated_ , in Leo’s personal vocabulary, means a neverending relationship that could’ve and should’ve been over years ago, had Leo been strong enough to end it. It means Cody and him had something going on between them in fucking college, almost two decades ago, and Leo was never able to let it go, and not even because he’s in love with Cody – because Timmy knows there’s no one Leo’s in love with, except Blaine and himself – but because he’s the very definition of selfishness. He’s that one person everyone has in their life, each has their own, who sees and wants and takes, and that’s the reason why he’s alive. He sees. He wants. He takes. And once he’s got you, he believes he owns you, that he’s got a right to you. A right to forever possess you.

“This doesn’t look complicated to me,” Timmy says bitterly, glaring at both his father and Leo, “On the contrary, it looks pretty fucking straightforward. You’ve been pining after him for years, ever since they moved back to Lima, and you just couldn’t keep your fucking dick in your pants any longer, could you?”

“Timmy—”

“Of course you couldn’t. When do you ever deny yourself anything? When do you ever stop to think for a fucking second what you’re gonna cause to other people, before you fucking act?”

Leo frowns, genuinely confused – which, if at all possible, frustrates Timmy even more. “What do you mean…?” he asks cluelessly, “What’s that got to do with—”

“With me?” Timmy interjects, facing him fiercely, “I don’t know, what could you having sex with my boyfriend’s dad and then presenting it to me in this house to make it official possibly had to do with me, Leo?”

“Timmy!” his father looks shocked for a moment, he even raises his voice in surprise, “You can’t possibly be suggesting Leo did this on purpose! You were not on his mind while he was—”

“Of course I wasn’t!” Timmy yells in his father’s face, years of rage burning in his voice, “When am I ever?!”

His words fall into an echoing silence. The air in the room grows heavy, as Cody looks away, finally conscious he slithered into a situation that was already complicated before he became part of it. Blaine looks at Timmy with eyes full of sadness and fear, while Leo, well, Leo looks like he always looks when you call him out on his selfishness: outraged, offended, even, as though he couldn’t possibly believe you could ever dare to even suggest he was anything short of selflessness personified.

“Timmy,” Leo speaks with unfeigned righteousness, looking straight into Timmy’s eyes, “What happened between Cody and me has nothing to do with you, or with Alex, or your relationship. You will only be involved in the consequences of it if you choose to be.”

“How can I choose not to?” Timmy replies stubbornly, “Tell me why he’s here.”

“He’s come to live with us. Vince kicked him out of the farm.”

“There you have it,” Timmy opens his arms wide open, as though trying to point out at the whole situation they’re going through right now, “Maybe you didn’t notice, but I’ve been training at Vince’s farm for the last, say, five years, give or take. He is my mentor and he is my employee, and now my father stole his husband. How do you think he’s going to be able to keep me on the farm after this?!”

“That’s his problem,” Leo frowns, annoyed. Timmy can sense in the way he answers, curtly and without thinking, that the thought of Vince bothers him, right now, that somehow, for whatever fucked up reason, Leo is convinced, as _always_ , that he was right in what he did, he was right in taking Cody away from Vince, because ultimately Vince didn’t deserve him. “If he wants to let this thing affect his relationship with you, that’s his choice.”

“His legitimate choice!” Timmy retorts, “And my problem, not his! As it should be yours! I can’t— can’t fucking _believe_ the way you speak about this. It’s all fine for you, you can’t see the problem behind what you did! And you—” he turns towards Cody, expecting to find him distraught, or at the very least upset. There’s only resignation on his face, though, resignation and a tint of serenity that shows that even though this situation’s a mess, and it can only get worse, this is what he wanted. Ultimately, he got what he wanted. “…I can’t believe you’re okay with this. That you’d leave a man who worshipped you to—to come live with a fucking cheater who doesn’t even love you.”

“Timothy,” Blaine reaches out for him, trying to touch him, perhaps to pacify him, but Timmy darts back away from him before he can manage, and turns to look at him with utter disgust in his eyes. And at first he doesn’t realize why that would be, why he would be disgusted by his father, who he always loved and adored, and who is on the cheated side, to boot, more than he’s disgusted by Cody and Leo.

And then it hits him. He understands, all of a sudden, as he scans the pained, overwhelmed expression on Blaine’s face.

He doesn’t necessarily have a problem with the fact that Leo cheated on Blaine with Cody. If Leo showed any kind of regret or remorse, he’d forgive him, no doubt about it. Mistakes can be made. People can atone for them. It is all good and it is all possible.

But this is different. This is Leo cheating on Blaine with Cody, and Blaine _accepting it_. This is Leo bending the rules of their relationship to get what he wants, and Blaine approving of it.

This is proof that what he always believed about his parents was a lie. It’s not true that their love has strict rules they can do nothing about. It’s not true that nothing and no one can come between them. It’s not true that they can do nothing about it, and it just is what it is.

It’s just that they – himself and his brother and sister – were not enough. They weren’t enough to pass through the protective barriers of his parents’ twisted love logic, they weren’t enough to weigh down on it.

Cody is. Cody’s worth changing the rules. Cody’s worth adapting. _They_ just never were worthy enough.

It feels like something’s breaking as he stares at it. Perhaps the protective glass he has stubbornly held around himself and his parents, to keep their relationship from crumbling to pieces despite everything. Perhaps it’s the faith he’s always had in them, that utter belief that he always clung to telling him his parents’ love was unchangeable and he should just take it as it was, be grateful for it, even.

Perhaps it’s just their bond. Up until today, he felt like he belonged to a family. Imperfect and faulty, like all families, but still his. 

It’s different now, though. He looks at these people and he can’t recognize them. What made them who they were has dissolved, there’s no trace of it, not even in the air around them. And Timmy doesn’t feel bound to them any longer.

“Are you gonna let this happen?” he asks his father in a whisper. He knows the answer to that question, already, but he wants to give his dad a chance to deny it.

He doesn’t, though. He looks down, as though he knew, deep inside, that this is an unacceptable answer, and he nods. “Leo needs this, love,” he says, “We agreed. Cody’s going to live with us from now on. There will be rules, and—”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Timmy shakes his head, backing away, “You don’t have to sell it to me, dad. I wouldn’t buy it anyway.” He closes his eyes, then slowly breathes in and out. “I won’t step foot into this house ever again. I don’t want to see this. I don’t even want to hear about this. If I could, I’d wipe this conversation off my memory. I can’t, so I’ll live with it. But I will never come back here. And I will never accept this.” He turns towards Leo, glaring at him. “I hope you’re happy. I hope you got what you wanted, and you can live with the consequences of it. For once.”

Leo rolls his eyes, huffing. “Jesus Christ, Timmy.”

“Timothy, I’m s—” Cody tries, but Timmy shakes his head.

“Not a word from you. You tell your son you’re sorry, if you want. It’ll mean more to him than it’ll ever mean to me, for sure.”

He doesn’t wait for any reply – he can’t. If he hears one more word from any of these people, he’s sure he’s going to go mad.

He walks out and away of his broken home, leaving only ruins behind.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the third week of COWT #11 @ landedifandom.net  
> Prompt: M3, "something that was united, by the end of the story is divided"


End file.
